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Susan J. Crawford
Susan J. Crawford is an American lawyer, who was appointed the Convening Authority for the Guantanamo military commissions, on February 7, 2007. mirror Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appointed Crawford to replace John D. Altenburg. mirror She had previously served as judge and chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, Inspector General of the Department of Defense (appointed by George H. W. Bush), General Counsel for the Department of the Army (appointed by Ronald Reagan) and Assistant State's Attorney for Garrett County, Maryland. mirror mirror Education *Bachelor of Arts, Bucknell University, 1969 mirror *J.D., New England School of Law, 1977 Judge on Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces Crawford was an active judge on the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) from 1991 - 2006. She was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to the nation's highest military court in 1991 for a fifteen year term and later served as its chief judge from 1999 - 2004. The CAAF website shows that she is still a judge in senior status. Crawford was the lone dissenter in a case involving Senator-Military Judge-Colonel Lindsey O. Graham. In 2006, by a vote of 4-1, the CAAF found unconstitutional the dual role of Lindsey O. Graham as a senator (Republican from South Carolina) and as a reserve officer sitting as a military judge on the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals. Crawford, in dissent, contended that there was no constitutional error in Senator Graham’s role, and that, even if there were, it was harmless because the military appellant Airman Lane had been unable to show he suffered any “actual prejudice.” She also said that, if Congress thought there were a constitutional problem in Sen. Graham’s service, it would have been free to take action, and it has not. The majority's opinion relied upon the Constitution’s “incompatibility clause” in Article I, ” saying that “no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in service.” It also relied upon separation-of-power principles, primarily as discussed by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and three Supreme Court precedents from the 1990s dealing with appointments to military courts. Congress, Crawford wrote, “may well desire the synergism that would result from having a member of Congress serving as a trial or appellate judge in the military justice system.”Ruling: senator cannot be military judge, too, SCOTUSblog.com, September 21, 2006 (retrieved October 13, 2006) Negotiated Hicks' plea bargain Crawford is reported to have directly negotiated the plea bargain of David Hicks, an Australian linked with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, without any input from the Prosecution. mirror Guantanamo discussion When speaking at Bucknell University on April 27, 2007 Crawford said During the same presentation, Crawford also said: On October 10, 2007 Morris D. Davis, the Chief Prosecutor for Office of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, resigned in protest concluding that mirror: Morris directly cited Susan Crawford as a cause of the problems in the Military Commissions process through her mixing of convening authority and prosecutor roles and her unnecessary use of closed door hearings. Morris called for removal of political appointees Susan Crawford and William J. Haynes and return of control to uniformed military authorities in order to restore openness and fairness to the Military Commissions process. On August 9, 2008 William Glaberson, writing in the New York Times wrote about Crawford's role in the recent Hamdan conviction. mirror : In an interview with Bob Woodward published in The Washington Post on January 14, 2009, Crawford said the following regarding why she did not refer to trial the case of Mohammed al Qahtani, the so-called "20th hijacker" of the September 11th attacks. Denied travel funds to Mohamed Jawad's military attorneys The civilian court system ordered Mohamed Jawad to be repatriated. His military attorneys requested funds to travel to Afghanistan to help aid in his repatriation. Crawford declined to fund their travel, since charges against him had been dropped. Eric Montalvo chose to travel to Afghanistan to aid Jawad at his own expense. Replacement Crawford retired in January 2010. In March 2010 she was replaced by retired Admiral Bruce MacDonald. References External links * mirror * mirror * mirror Category:Guantanamo Bay attorneys Category:Living people Category:Bucknell University alumni Category:Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces Category:United States Article I federal judges appointed by George H. W. Bush